The
Place Leopold in Mons [Z1247/5]
Thursday
4th April 1918: Mr. Frederick Budd of 54 Lea Road, Luton, has heard that his son,
Lance-Corporal Frederick V. Budd of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, has been badly
gassed and is now recovering in a Scottish hospital. Lance-Corporal Budd is a
regular soldier who joined the Connaught Rangers seven years ago. At the
beginning of the war he volunteered to serve with a cyclist corps in dangerous
conditions. Although his corps suffered high casualties he survived the retreat
from Mons safely. He served through the Irish rebellion, then returned to the
trenches. He suffered two slight wounds, and a more serious wound to the knee
from a shrapnel shell last October. Very few of the Old Contemptibles who
fought at Mons are still on active service.[1]
Source: Luton News, 4th April 1918
[1] Emperor Wilhelm II was
reported to have called the British Expeditionary Force of August 1914 a “contemptible
little army”. Hearing this, survivors of the early battles took to calling
themselves the Old Contemptibles.
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